Is Oscar Delahoya a Legend ?

[jahmez]

Oscar always strikes me as the David Beckham of boxing. A good fighter whose popularity transcended the sport.

[Manju]

Legend. He fought all-comers, something very rare in this sport and something other legends--Chavez, RJJ, PBF, PacMan--can't say. And he did it while possessing a popularity that could've enabled him to make considerable $$ while not doing so. Furthermore, no one dominated him in his prime, until Hopkins at MW.

People forget how dominant he was in the lightweight divisions, where his Hearns-like height and reach advantage gave him great leverage, enabling him to KO everyone except JJMolina…and that included Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Jesse James Leija, Genaro Hernandez, Rafael Ruelas, and Jorge Paez. Excellent names.

He then went on to became the first person to stop JCChavez (in brutal fashion) and the first to hand Sweet Pea a legitimate defeat, though to be fair, both were past their primes and Pernell put up an good fight. Nonetheless, these guys are legends and ODLH made history defeating them.

He then went on to defeat a red-hot –prime Quartey in dramatic fashion and outbox an also red-hot-prime Trinidad. He was the first person to expose Trinidad’s one-dimensionless and no matter how you judged the fight, it’s hard to say ODLH was truly defeated.

But that defeat and the 2 Mosley fights are why ODLH legend status remains in doubt. Switch the results around, and there would be no doubt. But the fact that we could easily switch the results (with the exception of the first Mosley fight, suggest that ODLH deserves legend status…since boxing subjective judging shouldn’t be taken as the final word. Furthermore, Mosley’s PED use should allow us to rank ODLH higher.

It may be a long time until we see another fighter who so willing and able to fight everyone.